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Ok, so after a few weeks off we've got a game session coming up this Saturday. I'm working on a focused campaign arc in mountains near Wawmar, where the Lord of Greed sleeps.

I've been tinkering with my 'gandalf-esque' character and I've come up with what I want to do.

So, the gandalf-esque character is actually two beings.

The first, Valeriax, an ancient gold dragon that makes his lair in a mountain in the mountains region surrounding/near Wawmar. His lair is an old abandoned gnomish fortress atop a mountain where a community once lived near the old Dwarven fortress of Warmar.

About Dragons, I like the lore of their creation, except the part about growing on their hoards. I'm mulling it around if I'm gonna keep that lore the same for my game.

So, Valeriax has a daughter, Vlyrixxi, and while her sire is content to hide up in the mountains and wait - (plot twist, he knows there is a secret enclave of Gnomes living deep in the mountains, talking to them in their dreams) Vlyrixxi isn't. So, to hook my players Vylrixxi is going to appear to the party as a wealthy, Paris Hilton-esque heiress, as my players would say 'her charisma is high' and offer the party lots of gold and riches to go into the deadlands and investigate whether or not its a viable investment. The point of contact she is gonna give them is a group of dwarves who are Hobbit style scoping out mountain caverns near Wawmar to set up a staging point for going after the Lord of Greed.

After a few sessions with this group and how they've played their characters, I think we're all gonna have more fun if I make sure they have a super clear, tailored motive (gold and attractive women) and start getting them invested in an area. So, as of our last session they are in Duvik's pass having cleared the mines and saved the town from the Orc cleric of vornoth causing the plague, and so Vylrixxi will approach them in Duvik's pass. So, I'm looking to make the area of an old ruined Gnomish settlement a long reaching adventure site for several levels at least, if not a whole campaign.

To that effect, I've penciled in some factions and NPCs I want to introduce to the group, who likes problem solving and getting to kill things.

1) Valeriax & Vylrixxi - Valeriax won't get involved until later. The question I had to ask when I came up with him, is why doesn't an ancient gold dragon fight the lord of greed? Well, cause the lord of greed is massive and powerful in his own right and would have help from the lord of wrath presumably, so Valeriax isn't gonna come out of hiding unless he thinks it might do some good. He's a dragon and can play the long game. Vlyrixxi is younger and less wise, less patient, and so while she won't take dragon form lightly - its possible she may impulsively reveal herself at some point.

And this is somewhat cheesy and punish, but I'm going to call the region the 'misty mountains' to reflect the lair feature of gold dragons, the mists that warn do gooders and take evil form and all that.

2) Dragonborn servants of Firefight & dragonborn rebels in small camps in the deadlands.

3) A goblin tribe living at the base of the mountain where the old Gnomish holding was.

4) Several kobold factions, to include a small flying tribe that lives in the higher parts of the mountains. There is also a kobold faction that is aligned with the hiding gnome faction.

5) The gnome faction. A small faction of gnomes that survived the fall of their people, who are hiding out for largely the same reason the gold dragon is - why fight when there is no chance of winning?

6) The dwarven expedition looking for a safe place to start staging a siege of Wawmar.

7) A drow adventuring party looking for said rumored gnomish enclave.

8) an adventuring party from Farland just out and about in the area, general do-gooders.

The initial home base would be Duvik's Pass, then the dwarf expedition potentially.

There's a compromise available. Take a look at the Dragon Ascendant from 3e's Draconomicon, p90-92. It's a dragon that begins the road to godhood by devouring the entirety of its hoard, which must be of a minimum value. What if the dragons of the World of Farland are able to grow in power by consuming magical items? The reason they hoard mundane treasures is to purchase (or finance the theft) of magical items, and the reason they would hoard magical items is because they need to consume a certain quantity of them at once in order to ascend to the next level of power.

I made a zoomed in area map, in between Zeland and the Deadlands for this campaign arc.

The dragon at the intersection of the river forks represents a young black dragon that is worshipped by a tribe of Grung in the area, the two campsites further down the river represent enclaves of Dragonborn loyal to Firefight, the dwarf camp is where the expedition is, the ruins next to it are the old Gnomish fortress/city and the dragon in the top left represents Valeriax's mountain. 1 hex equals 1 mile, isn't exactly matched to the scale of the actual Farland maps but I think for my purposes this will work great.

This is the GM version, so for my players I can hide everything except the Dwarf camp that Vylrixxi will tell them about.